Mitsubishi planning to launch its smaller cars, the Mirage and Attrage in India

The Mitsubishi Attrage will rival the likes of Renault Scala, Nissan Sunny and the Toyota Etios when launched in India.

The Japanese car major Mitsubishi is associated with big and premium cars in India. The Indian car market is not aware about the Japanese car maker’s smaller car offerings. However, all this is set to change in the year 2016, as Mitsubishi has big plans for the highly lucrative Indian car market.

During the launch of the new Mitsubishi Pajero Sport automatic variant, the Japanese car major had confirmed that the company has huge plans for the domestic car market. It mentioned that the company has many new launch plans for India after the end of the company’s contract with Hindustan Motors. Mitsubishi’s partnership contract with the Indian Hindustan Motors will conclude in 2015, after which Mitsubishi will go solo in India and will bring in many fresh vehicles to improve its market presence in India.

Mitsubishi stated that the company has plans to introduce new SUV models in Indiain the next year, while its patent primary models will be arriving in the country in the beginning of the year 2016. While Mitsubishi quite eagerly revealed its future plans for the Indian auto market, it was careful enough not to disclose the names of the planned upcoming SUVs slotted for India. However, on the brighter side Mitsubishi was not so secretive when it came to its smaller upcoming models for India, and went ahead announcing their names as well. These are the Mitsubishi Attrage and the Mirage.

It was reported earlier that the Japanese car maker has plans to bring in these compact cars to the Indian market next year. Nevertheless, going by the company revelations, it is now clear that Mitsubishi is going to bring in these cars, but at a later date in 2016. With the launch of the Attrage and the Mirage, Mitsubishi will be entering the highly popular and growing segments of the Indian premium hatchbacks and sedans.

The Mitsubishi Mirage is a compact premium hatchback with a length of less than 4 meters, which will make it eligible for the Indian excise duty benefits. Post its market launch in India the Mirage will be rivaling with the likes of the segment leader Maruti Suzuki Swift, Hyundai Grand i10 and Nissan Micra. On the other hand, the Mitsubishi Attrage is a sub-compact sedan based on the Mirage. This sedan measures over 4 meters in length and post its market launch it will fight with the Scala, Etios and Sunny.

The Mitsubishi Mirage and Attrage cars in India are likely to be powered by a 1.2 litre petrol engine generating 78PS of max power and 100Nm of peak torque. The engine will be mated to a 5 speed manual transmission gearbox as standard, while an automatic gearbox option might also be available. A diesel engine could be offered at a later date. Mitsubishi will thus, be launching a lot of new vehicles in India in the next two year’s time. The company also plans to expand its dealership network in the country by 2015.

When launched in India the Mirage will directly compete with the likes of Maruti Swift, Renault Pulse and Hyundai Grand i10.